


blue

by emmyeccentric



Series: electric colors [5]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Episode: s03e01 Antipasto, F/M, Shower Sex, Smut, this is weirdly hannibal worship and i’m sorry, we know i like my bedelia pinin’
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:34:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26717575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmyeccentric/pseuds/emmyeccentric
Summary: “Stay or die, she concludes her options to be: wade into the lukewarm comfort of this lie, while the oh-so-close sharks sniff for blood. She’s so far out now, she might as well stay put.”or, the scent of freshly pressed linens, the grip of the sea, the color of forget-me-nots and lips that need saving
Relationships: Bedelia Du Maurier/Hannibal Lecter
Series: electric colors [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/792990
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19





	blue

**Author's Note:**

> DEAR GOD THIS TOOK ME SO LONG TO WRITE
> 
> anyway, here’s the penultimate piece of this little rainbow. not edited really, so please forgive the mistakes.

“Will you help me?”, she quietly pleas, melting into the touch, because the damp cloth feels so _cool_ and _good_ and _real_ against her sticky skin— and because of his pride. This new secret between them, this dark place into which he is baptizing her, is something she only now realizes how much she covets. She disappears for a moment, only to gain the weak resolve she had just started to build. She cannot forget who is nursing her psychological wounds — the man that she knows caused them. Yet her curiosity, bordering on a sick enchantment, lingers, ugly and telling, like smudged ink on cheap paper. She’s so vulnerable now, it takes all her clinical-distancing might to begin reconstructing her walls, ice block by ice block.

He pauses, looking down at her. “Yes, because you asked me to.”

Turning to grab another towel, the corner of her mouth drawn upwards in a lazy smirk. “Did you do this, Hannibal?” He huff outs a chuckle, like a father of a child who just inquired about the color of the sky. Bastard. Gently he cups her jaw, brushing an errant hair from her forehead.

“No,” he assures, running his thumb along her cheek, “you did. I sent you a referral because I knew you would be more suitable for his treatment. You’re a very talented clinician.” He never acknowledges today’s actions, and how they explicitly suggest just how much she has failed _that_ description. “Now, I’m going to clean him up. You should bathe. Place your clothes on the floor; we have to dispose of them. Wear a suit, clinical attire, then we call for the ambulance.” His eyes find hers again, as a calloused, manicured hand rests on her shoulder. “Are you ready?” He’s searching now, his surgical gaze looking for any malignant seed of fear that might cause her to flee. Stay or die, she concludes her options to be: wade into the lukewarm comfort of this lie, while the oh-so-close sharks sniff for blood. She’s so far out now, she might as well stay put. She’s shocked, she’s sick, the day already has the haziness of a decades-old memory, but she’d be lying to herself if she said she wasn’t that much more drawn to _whatever_ he is.

“Yes,” she finally replies.

“Did you _enjoy_ it, Bedelia?” He already knows the answer, but she’d rather die than give him that satisfaction. She may end up doing just that.

She steps away from the mirror, taking in her person and lifting her chin. It’s an unsuccessful attempt to refreeze the cracks in her façade that have been drip-drip-dripping onto her bathroom vanity. “I acted on an instinct, one that should be _ignored._ ”

“It’s interesting to me, that with the advancement of newer technologies and innovations to keep us alive, to keep us reproducing and overcrowding the warming streets…we are asked in modern society, more now than ever before, to ignore our very instincts that are designed to spare resources so that the strongest of us survive. Contention of those instincts seems somewhat counterproductive, and may only contribute to the chaos.”

“Is _this_ not chaos?” she huffs, gesturing at her blood-soaked linens.

“ _This,”_ he implores, eyes twinkling, “was an _accident._ ” His impudence sets her blood bubbling through her veins, and _truly_ , _honestly_ , _fuck it_ , she thinks. He’s right. Giving in to the carnage, committing sins that once were never considered so, is _very_ enjoyable.

So she charges the son of a bitch, pounding at his chest, hoping her hand will go right through, so she can rip the very breath from his lungs, too, like she did Neil’s. He lets her go at him until he is pinned to the bathroom wall.

“Bedelia,” he chides, several decibels louder than his usual conversational berceuse, and he captures her wrist in a firm grasp, straddling the edge of pain. “Don’t make this more taxing than it should be.” The unexpected boom of his voice and his grip on her flesh has the warmth of her ire traveling to more thrilling places.

“And how taxing is that?” she murmurs liquidly into his jaw. She knows he knows the answer, and she doesn’t _want_ to want to know how he knows, but inquiry grows slow and insidious, mold-like, inside her mind. He loosens his grip, lowering their held hands between their torsos.

“For _you_? A minor inconvenience.”

“And for you?” she challenges.

“We’ll discuss it in therapy. As I said, you are a very talented clinician.” Her sympathetic nervous system plays into “fight”; pupils dilate and arms surge with epinephrine as she rips herself from his grasp.

Against her more lucid judgement, against the anger festering in her chest, the unmistakable feeling of liquid heat reaches her core, and she curses herself. She is her vanity’s most vulnerable prey; always has been. They have that in common; always have. She curses their mysticism and enigma, she curses their history, and she curses the unspoken drives they share that she doesn’t want to think about, those effervescent twinges of satisfaction that will inevitably lead to their demise, shared; hopefully otherwise.

She curses her own limbic system.

And every swallowed ounce of silent remorse sublimates into a tepid wrath, and then to even quieter loneliness. What a damn shame it is that she isn’t alone, not really. 

“Right,” she exhales it all quietly with her back turned, making her way to grab a larger towel. The sound of an opening garbage bag startles her.

“For your clothes,” he nods, turning to leave.

Today, he’s already nipped at her feet, she thinks, pulling her under. It’s for just long enough that she’s stopped taking air for granted.

In which waters would he drown? Could she ever leave _him_ gasping as he breaks sea level?

She feels each vertebrae stack itself one by one, shoulders back; her motion coded by a temporally-transcendental, evolutionarily-tried blueprint for predation.

What a damn shame it is that she doesn’t want to be alone. Not really.

“Hannibal,” she pauses, peering through blood-flaked hair, “How will you help me?”

“In whatever way is in your best interest.”

She toes carefully towards him, testing the currents, fiddling with the zip of her skirt. “And do _you_ deem what is in my best interests — after all this?”  


“No.” He falls only just short of seeming sincere, to her. Nobody else would be able to tell a difference.

The zip squeals as it falls open. “Damage control, although important, is _not_ in my best interest, currently,” she asserts, “You and I both know the importance of taking time to process traumatic events. _Decompression_ is in my best interest, right now.” She ghosts her fingertips across a Versace-clad bicep. “Will you help me, decompress, Hannibal? Can _he,_ ” she eyes her bloodstained blouse, “wait?”

“Not for very long.”

“I’ll be quick then,” she breathes against over his jugular, and goes in for barely there sucks, only making contact with the skin there, if only to get a hint of what it would feel like for her canines to go deeply through.

She shimmies out of the skirt, and places his hands on her hips, moving them up and down her frame, under her camisole. His strong, warm hands blaze across her tiny waist, causing her to jolt and shiver. Closer still, she finally, gently mouths at his bottom lip. He gives in for a moment as his thumb strokes the angle of her jaw, her fingers mussing his pristine coiffure. “ _Bedelia_ ”, he hesitates, lips swollen and smeared, “Are you of sound mind?”

“Don’t ask questions you know the answer to; it wastes precious time,” she whispers. His hum of amusement becomes a strained hiss when her teeth work his earlobe. Sharply, he turns his head to meet her in an absolutely violent kiss that thaws the last of her defenses. Easily, he could swallow her whole, she thinks. In this moment, she may let him. The large span of his hands pushes her camisole up and away, placing it in the bag with one hand, kneading her breast with the other. His mouth traces her neck, sternocleidomastoid to trapezius, and she feels the betraying throb of arousal between her legs.

“What a shame,” he huffs against her collarbone, as he slips his right index finger under her bra strap, moving his left hand down the slope of her lower abdomen, “these are lovely.” He gestures down to what’s she left wearing, ivory skin frosted in cornflower lace, nipples straining against the sheer material. “They’ll be replaced.”

 _Well_ , she muses as a hint of clarity peeks through, _I deserve at least that_. They’re already ruined anyway, as she feels wetness begin to pool at her core. He pops the clasps of her matching belt and it sounds like a ticking bomb. He cups her in his palm, testing the heat there, teasing with the slightest hint of friction, but it’s enough to elicit a tiny keen from her throat. He slides her stockings down, and there’s no more teasing, no more deliberation. She remembers it takes little more than a hour for lividity to appear, quickly revealing a corpse’s final vivid pose, like invisible ink over a flame.

Her flicker of worry is snuffed out by his two fingers dipping below her waistband, applying _gorgeous_ pressure to her clit. Her knees buckle as she moans, and she remembers to step out of her heels. Her panties are dropped into the refuse and he finally, _finally_ crooks those thick, deft fingers inside her and she wants to cry. He guides her against the counter for leverage, pumping into her with practice, as nuanced and adept as anything else he does, and she can already feel the glimmer of orgasm flash in her lower belly. Quickly, she unsnaps her bra and kneads her breasts for added edge. She pauses when she notices the blood settling in her cuticles. At her sudden pause, he slows his rhythm, and withdraws his fingers, the sudden cold emptiness tempered by more delicate teasing across the skin of her thighs, her clit. Hand still between her thighs, he holds one of her bloodstained fingers to his lips, sucking gently and licking it clean. He hums with frightening satiation, “You need to wash. I’ll join you. Go now.”

She walks over to her large shower as he begins to untie his tie, testing the water; the action brings to surface the same fluctuant anticipation she’s carried all night. She wants it hot, wants to sear off the sins of the evening. She wants to feel reborn. When the temperature reaches an appropriately primordial level, she steps in, closing her eyes to revel in the transient respite of the rain water shower head. Hands on the back of her shoulders break her meditative state. She turns to face him, well really, to appreciate him, in such close proximity, with all hiding layers above. He’s strong, and solid, nearly dwarfing her form without her usual Ferragamo supplementation. That’s good; she wants to feel small tonight. She wants to shrink so badly that it makes her wet just to stand underneath his towering frame.

“May I wash you?,” he asks. Normally she would shudder and retreat, as actions of self-care are something she very knowingly and proudly claims as her means of control, and not even long-standing lovers have been privileged to participate. However, the nature of rebirth and baptism often entails relinquishing, if even for a moment, one’s control to a guide, God or man, who knows the depths of exactly what covenant we are diving into. Despite his esotericism, Hannibal Lecter is not some deity or shaman, but he seems to know what he’s doing. So she says yes. He pours shampoo and the sharpness of jasmine and lemongrass cuts through the steam. His fingers dance around her hairline, mounds washing away her transgressions like Vesuvian lava. He works away the tension at the base of her scalp, close enough to chase the salty, herby, metallic drops of water down her neck with his lips. She leans into his touch, turning to catch his mouth with her own. They stay like that for a while; she revels in the warm water blurring with the soft warmth of his tongue, and the slickness between her legs is too thick and gratuitous to just be from the shower or her soap. As he did before, he pours a handful of body wash in his palms. His movements are slow; he starts with her back, adding enough pressure to release the knots the day has tied, slowly moving down to the cleft of her buttock, adding a deliberate squeeze. She lets out a low sigh at that, reaching down in front of her to touch the part of her begging for it. He grabs the determined limb and weaves their hands together, adding enough pressure there to tease, before firmly holding it behind her back. She rolls her hips into his groin, feeling rapidly hardening flesh there.

“Help me,” the hand behind her back runs a thumb over the head of his cock.

“I will help you,” he brings a sudsy hand to her breast, “because you asked me to”. He releases his grip on her wrist, using both hands to tweak and knead her nipples, sending pulsing sparks down to her hot core. He turns her gently, kissing her intensely again, carefully walking her back to the far end of the shower. Before she has time to assess, he’s on his knees in front of her, tossing a leg over his deltoid, and he dives in. Thank God the wall she’s settled against is solid, because the pleasure he finally unlocks renders her limbs useless. He licks a long stripe between her folds, and his tongue reaches it’s intended destination, flicking deliberately over her swollen clit. Another rush of arousal spills from her, and he laps it up with fervor. Manic liturgies tumble from her lips, _oh Gods_ and whispered _yeses_ that she hasn’t heard from herself in some time. He continues his ministrations, plunging two fingers into the tight, sloppy heat there, and her moans crack and rasp, just as her insides reach a familiar simmer. Her hips cant into every thrust of his fingers, and the edges of her vision become shadows. That pressure builds, the line of her spine a rubber band pulled to its limit. When she comes, she comes long and hard, hands searching for purchase against the slippery tiled wall in futility, and she’s floating in a heady haze. She only surfaces for air when he grins and leaves a gentle nibble against her inner thigh. There is a dampness on her cheeks, despite being far from the shower’s spray.

She’s still waiting for her limbs to solidify when she feels his hands grasp beneath her thighs, and he lifts her with ease. Her shins meet around his back, almost of their own volition. His thick cock ghosts against her, causing her overstimulated cunt to throb, before he sinks into her easily. She is intoxicatingly full, and she revels in the sharp hiss from his lips. She meets his gaze, the amber-brown inked over with arousal, before he begins to move. He pounds into her, using the wall as counter-leverage, and she meets him as well as she can, stars glittering around her every time he brushes that perfect spot deep inside her. She’s already halfway there from before and now she’s nearly incoherent, and she whines, “ _help me_ ”, “ _oh God, help me_ ” with every loud collision of their hips. When she realizes what she’s saying, she digs her teeth into his bottom lip and swallows the words thickly. He pulls away and nips at her earlobe.

“Aren’t I?” he bites out, throwing her arms more securely around his neck, so he can go between them and push her over the edge. She sobs out her climax, trembling, spent. Her cunt grips him over and over again, and it isn’t long before he pumps into her with a harsh, low yelp, carefully lowering them to the shower floor.

“Thank you,” Bedelia sighs as her breath evens.

Hannibal rests his eyes for a brief moment, restoring his repose, before standing and rinsing himself under the now chilled spray. “You’re welcome, Doctor,” he mutters, stepping out and grabbing a towel. “We’re running short on time,” he presses, “I’ll go attend to the situation. You can get dressed, as I said.”

As she finally does so, she feels as though she is running nylon over legs that are someone else’s, using her curling wand on a mannequin’s wig rather than her own hair. Her training has instilled in her that derealization, depersonalization, and detachment are common mechanisms the human brain uses to process trauma. The night’s events certainly feel like a process, but not one utilized to digest information or stimuli.

Tonight’s events feel like a process of transformation, gritty sand grains settling into the vile slime of the mollusk shell to become something eye-catching and unique. Later, she may tell half-truths, that she did everything she could to prevent this becoming. She wishes she did.

But it’s so much easier to ask for help, rather than to fight change alone.

**Author's Note:**

> some personal ish: i’m in my psych rotation right now and I ABSOLUTELY love it, which was not expected. However, I do find myself thinking of how effing scary and probably really hard-asses Hannibal and Bedelia would be as attendings. Would smash, would not work for.


End file.
